HIS BRANDED BRIDE: Steel Devils MC

by Sophia Gray

  “Come on. We’ll sit at the table.”

  I followed him to a formal dining room that held the longest table I had ever seen. It appeared to be made in all one piece, out of solid slate.

  “Which end would you like?”

  “Are there speakers to broadcast our conversation to one another?”

  “Funny you should ask.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “Nope. There is a little speaker box at every place sitting. They are recessed under a little flip up panel so they don’t interfere with anything unless you need them.”

  “Wow. That’s just crazy.”

  “I agree. Tell you what. Let’s skip the table and go veg out in the game room. I spend most of my time there.”

  “I didn’t realize you were much of a gamer.”

  “I’m not. It’s just the only room in this house that feels like a normal place to me.”

  “Lead the way.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Following him, I was surprised when he hit a small button on a wall that appeared to be solid. A section of it slid back to reveal the opening to a room on the other side. I could immediately see why he liked it. Despite its high-tech James-Bond-style entrance, the interior could have passed for the rec room in any normal household that had the extra space. There was a large-screen television, a stereo and, several pieces of expensive but comfortable-looking furniture.

  “Yes, this is much better.”

  “I agree. Come on.”

  The two of us sat on the overstuffed sofa in front of the flat screen, but didn’t turn it on. Instead, D hit a button on a nearby remote and a stereo started playing in the background. Janessa smiled as The Eagles played low in the background.

  “I’d have never pegged you for an Eagles fan.”

  “What? Why not? The Eagles are classic.”

  “I don’t know. I guess the whole biker thing. I figured you were into something a bit heavier.”

  “Sometimes. I have very diverse tastes in music, but you can’t go wrong with The Eagles.”

  “I’d have to agree.”

  “Tell me about your family, Janessa. I didn’t see to find anything on them in your background.”

  “My mother died when I was young, and I lived with my father, but he died too. I don’t have any siblings. Not a lot to tell. We were pretty poor growing up. They did what they could to take care of me.”

  “That’s all very vague.”

  “I guess it’s not really a childhood that I have happy, fond memories about. The less said, the better.”

  “I can relate. I grew up without a father. My mother kept trying to replace the one that walked out on her when she told him she was pregnant. There were quite a few of them, but they all were the same. A bunch of brutes who thought the way to teach me to be a man was to beat it into me.”

  “And your mother let them?”

  “She didn’t really know the difference by that point. She was too hopped up on coke to care. I just learned to defend myself against them, and when I got old enough, I took off to do my own thing.”

  “And your mother?”

  “Died several years later. Combination of coke, pills and booze.”

  “I’m sorry, D.”

  “It’s life. We all have our crosses to bear, right?”

  “I suppose we do.”

  He stood up and took my empty plate, smiling down at me softly. I couldn’t help but note again just how gorgeous he was, and when he wasn’t playing the part of biker crime lord, he was actually quite pleasant to be around.

  “I need to run upstairs and check on something. Why don’t you make us a couple more drinks and I’ll be right back?”

  “Okay. You want me to take the plates to the kitchen?”

  “It’s on the way. I’ll walk with you and take them. I wouldn’t want you to get lost in this place.”

  “I probably would.”

  We walked back to the kitchen, me busying myself at the bar while D put the plates in the dishwasher and disappeared up the stairs in the next room. I made myself a Jack and Coke and poured his straight, retrieving a couple of ice cubes from the nearby freezer and dropping them in. Taking the drinks with me, I returned to the game room and got comfortable to wait for him. It wasn’t long before I heard the sound of his footsteps coming back down the stairs.

  “Here’s your drink,” I said, smiling up at him, but it became obvious very quickly that he wasn’t happy about something.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Tell me what you were looking for in my office, Janessa.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t act as if you don’t know what I mean.”

  “I don’t understand. You went upstairs and everything was fine. Now, you are back down here asking me something about your office. I don’t know what you mean.”

  “At the casino. I left you there to get dressed, and you went through my drawers and the filing cabinet. What were you looking for?”

  “I…I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? That’s the best you’ve got? You don’t know?”

  “I was just being nosey I guess.”

  “Nosey? Right. You know, I knew something was up when I came back and found the door locked, but I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt. I tried to buy your bullshit story about having locked it because you were indisposed. Thing is, my office has a motion sensor that kicks on the security camera if anyone is in there. I check it every night to make sure no one goes in while I’m away from the casino due to some problems I’ve been having. Imagine my lack of surprise when I instead found you rifling through things.”

  “I’m sorry, D. I just wanted to see what you had turned up about me in my background check.”

  “Why, Janessa? Is there something I need to know about that? I mean, we talked about your background and you told me why I hit a dead end. Is there something more I need to know about that too?”

  “I…no. I think I should go.”

  My heart raced wildly. I was busted, and I had no plan for this. I knew I was babbling, and all I could think about was getting out of here, but I had a feeling that wasn’t going to be easy. D wasn’t the sort of man to just let something like that go without explanation. I had to come up with something reasonable, and I had to come up with it fast.

  “You aren’t going anywhere until you tell me the truth, Janessa! No more bullshit. Tell me what you were looking for in my office or this is going to get very ugly between us, very quickly. You are the last person I want to hurt, but you crossed a line. I was beginning to really trust you.”

  “I’m sorry, D. I was just being nosey. I told you.”

  “Janessa! Stop lying to me! Tell me right now what you were doing in there!”

  I flinched at the sound of his raised voice. Before I could react past that, he covered the ground between us and pushed me against the wall by the television. His eyes were cold as they bore down on mine, demanding answers.

  “Okay. I’ll tell you. Just let go of me. Let’s sit down, and I’ll tell you everything.”

  For a moment, he continued to hold me there, but he finally let go and stepped away, taking a seat on the sofa and looking at me suspiciously.

  “Don’t waste my time, Janessa, and don’t try to fuck with me. No more bullshit. You get one chance to tell me the truth.”

  “Okay. My father was Romeo Magre. Do you know who he was?”

  “No. Should I?”

  “Yes, you should. Your motorcycle club killed him.”

  “What?”

  It was obviously D’s turn to feign ignorance of any wrong doing, though the look on his face was pretty convincing. I studied his face closely for any signs that he knew what I was talking about, but if he did, he was not tipping his hand one bit. It was nothing that he couldn’t feign from years of practice in his business.

  “My father liked to gamble. He was in deep and borrowed money from your motorcycle club. He paid it back before t
he note was even due, but you killed him anyway.”

  “Wait. No. We don’t do business like that. No one in my club would have ever killed someone over a loan. Beat him up maybe, make his life hell, but not kill him, and certainly not if he had already paid it back to us.”

  “I’m telling you that someone did.”

  “Okay, let’s back up a step or two here. What makes you think it was us?”

  “Because whoever shot him left a calling card. There was a pack of matches from the casino laying on his chest, and it matched a previous murder that was traced back to your motorcycle club.”

  “No. No way. Not only would we not have done such a thing, but we sure aren’t stupid enough to call attention to the fact that we did. What other murder? What are you talking about?”

  “My father was shot twice, right in the heart. Apparently, there had been a murder a week or so before that was done the same way. The other man owed money to the club too. His wife said he had also paid off his loan. She was with him when he did. They had been in a tight spot and needed to pay their mortgage before it went into foreclosure. They were waiting on a pension from his work, from an injury he had suffered there. In desperation, they had come to your club for help. When the pension came through, they paid off their loan.”

  “This is crazy. It doesn’t make sense. I’ve already told you we don’t kill over pissant beefs like unpaid loans, much less paid ones.”

  “Well, someone in your club does.”

  “I would know.”

  “Are you sure about that, D?”

  “What do you mean? Of course I’m sure. No one in the club would dare make a move like that without my say so, and they would never get it.”

  “My father is dead. Someone in your club did it, with or without your permission.”

  “Okay. Let’s just slow this down a few notches, and let me catch up. Are you a cop?”

  “No. I’m not.”

  “But you are working with them.”

  “More like they are working with me.”

  I was trembling all over. A part of me felt angry, but mostly I was frightened of what he might do to me now that he knew the truth. I was alone in his house with him and at his mercy, and he now knew at least part of the truth. There was plenty more I hadn’t told him, but I didn’t intend to, at least not right now.

  “Okay. Let me say this one more time. I would not have and did not have your father killed. I need to understand what is happening here, so tell me, from the beginning, everything you know. Don’t leave anything out. It could be important.”

  I took a deep breath and started from the beginning. I told him everything I knew, leaving out only the fact that the officer helping me was actually a DEA agent looking into the drugs they dealt from the motor club. It was better that we kept this to a case of me just trying to find out what happened to my father rather than bringing anything that would really upset him into the equation.

  “I’m telling you that this was not the club, Janessa.”

  “I don’t think you can honestly say that, D.”

  “I believe I can. I’ve already told you that nothing gets done without my say so.”

  “You aren’t going to like this, but there are things that you don’t know, D.”

  “What things?”

  I sighed deeply. He wasn’t going to like this and here I was, the betrayer and the bearer of bad news. It could very easily go bad for me if he decided that he didn’t like what I was saying.

  “One night when I was talking to Arthur, he made some comments about you not knowing everything that goes on around there. Something about rogue members of the club.”

  “Arthur? He’s rogue? He told you that?”

  “No, no. I don’t think so. I asked him that. He was pretty drunk, so I figured he would tell me. He said he didn’t like to choose sides. I think he either knew who they were or maybe just knew they existed. I’m not sure. He didn’t tell me anymore than that, so I can’t say for certain.”

  “Still, if he were drunk, he could have just been talking out of his ass.”

  “Possibly, but then there was Ringo. When he attacked me, he was mouthy. I don’t think he intended for me to walk out of there alive.”

  I could feel all the color drain from my face as I said the words. I didn’t want to relive those moments with Ringo, but the mention of him took me right back there and a shudder went through my system. I had to mentally remind myself to remain calm and focused. I needed to get through this little interrogation with D without getting sucked into that unseemly vortex.

  “You think he meant to kill you?”

  “Yes. He was talking about how you were not on top of things and that someone else would be taking over. He said he would be their second in command. He laughed about it. I don’t think he would have told me that if he had intended for me to walk out of there.”

  “Jesus Christ! Why didn’t you already tell me all of this, Janessa?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Yeah. I know. I’m the enemy. Okay, I get it. I can’t believe I didn’t see this coming. I haven’t seen any of this. How could I be so blind? Okay. Okay. So, you have no idea who these rogue members are other than Arthur maybe knows, and Ringo was definitely one of them. What about Jack Knife?”

  “I have no idea about Jack Knife. He never said anything about any of that stuff. Either he wasn’t involved or was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. Whatever he was off doing the day he came to lay low at my house, and whatever he was doing the day he disappeared could have been tied to it. Maybe he was involved and got greedy, or maybe he found out something he shouldn’t have. You said he was pretty loyal. If he ran across people who were out to do you harm, then he would have come straight back to you with the information, wouldn’t he?”

  “I’d like to believe he would, but I’m not sure of anything at this point. This is a lot to take in. I can’t believe all of this has been going on around me, and I’ve been oblivious.”

  “There have been no signs?”

  “There have been some strange things, but nothing I couldn’t somehow come up with answers to explain other than an accounting problem I’m dealing with. Maybe I was too quick to do that. I mean, my guys. I can’t believe anyone in my club would do this to me. I’m smarter than this.”

  “I don’t know, D. I think they’ve covered their tracks pretty well.”

  “Well, there are at least some tracks they haven’t covered. I’m missing money from the club. Quite a lot of it.”

  “How can you just be missing money? Doesn’t it have to trace back to somewhere?”

  “Casino money, yes. Some club money, yes. Then there is what we’ll call ‘discretionary funds.’ Money that quite a few members have access to for greasing wheels, making off-market purchases, things like that. You get the idea.”

  “Short term loans?”

  D looked at me with a sudden realization. His face fell. He knew exactly where I was going with my comment, and it didn’t make him happy at all.

  “Yes, short term loans. I just don’t see why they would have killed someone who they loaned money to if that person paid it back. It doesn’t make sense, and it’s bad for business, not just mine, but whatever racket they were into as well. Are you sure your father paid them?”

  “Yes, positive.”

  “How can you be so certain?”

  “Because I was with him.”

  “Janessa! You were with him? Who did he pay?”

  “I don’t know. Look, my Dad was a real fuck up. He bragged about how much money he had won at the poker game, and I asked where he got the money. Since he had made a profit off of it, I guess he decided to tell me the truth for a change. He was going to go back that night and try to double it but I said no. I told him we were going to go pay back what he owed, and then he could take whatever extra that he had won and go gamble with it if he wanted. We argued about it.”

  “Because he didn’t want to pay it b
ack?”

  “Yes. He thought he could make even more with another few hands of poker. I told him that not only did he need to pay that back, but he needed to take what was left and pay some of our bills. He kept trying to convince me that he could do so much more if I would just let him hang on to all of it to gamble. In the end, I drove him down to meet someone he called on his cell phone. We parked in an alley and he told me to wait in the car. It was dark and I couldn’t make out who he met. I could see him handing him the money and then he turned around and came back to the car.”